MANISH BHASIN: I know a lot of players watch the Football League Show... they want to see themselves in the limelight

Manish Bhasin is the presenter of The Football League Show. He has previously worked as presenter on Football Focus and BBC local radio. In his debut Footballers’ Football Column he reveals which manager helped give him his break and discusses the research and preparation that goes on in putting together the Saturday night highlight show. Before you read his column, watch his video below.

Martin O'Neill was fantastic for my upbringing in sports journalism. When he was Leicester manager when they were in the Premier League I was working for BBC Radio Leicester doing every job conceivable – presenter of Drive Time, news reader, sports reader, Saturday sports presenter, I even had a go at commentary.

I spent a lot of time with O'Neill covering the club. He learned from the good old Brian Clough days at Nottingham Forest, so going to interview him was no easy task.

You couldn't take anything for granted. Make a tiny mistake here or there it would be picked on.

Helping hand: Martin O'Neill helped out Manish when he was a young reporter on local radio

One day I tried to impress him and I was still a bit of a naïve reporter. He always liked a little chinwag with the national paper journalists and I remember being really keen wanting to impress him but trying too hard.

Once I was talking about his old club Wycombe and said Hugo Sanchez had done brilliantly there. Suddenly I realised I meant Lawrie Sanchez. Hugo was the Mexico legend who played for Real Madrid!

Martin said: 'I think you meant Lawrie, Manish, how about you walk out of the room and walk back in and we'll start this conversation again.' I was dying inside.

Whenever we meet up now he always asks: 'How are you, son?' and remembers me like I'm a kid. I've always got a soft spot for him and he turned out to be Leicester's best manager ever with five consecutive top eight finishes in the Premier League – and they're my team.

I've worked on the Football League Show for four years now. I know a lot of players watch it. It's a bit of self-publicity, they want to see themselves in the limelight, they want to see us talking about them.

I often get told by managers that
considering the amount of clubs we have to cover, 72 in all, we're on it
in terms of the current issues at the clubs we pick out and talk about.

Recently
the Watford striker Troy Deeney talked ahead of the play-off final about
how the only way he kept up-to-date with what was going on at Watford
while he was in prison was through the Football League Show.

He
spent four months – cut down from 10 – in jail for affray and missed
the start of the season. It makes you think about the power of
television.

For him, it
was 'lights out' at seven o'clock so he had five hours to kill until it
was on air but he'd find a way to pass the time.

That
was his way of keeping in touch with his professional life and all the
changes that were going on and no doubt thinking, 'How am I going to fit
in to that if they ever take me back?' Look at what happened there he
had an amazing season.

I
speak to elder statesmen within the management fraternity – people like
Frank Clark and Lawrie McMenemy – and they all talk highly about the
programme. It makes us feel we're doing the right job. We've got
to get 90-110 goals out per week. We've only missed one goal in four
years – so we can't be doing too badly.

Mix up: Manish made a couple mistakes when talking about Lawrie Sanchez

You do make mistakes sometimes, but you learn from them. When I was the presenter of Football Focus I had a slip of the tongue when I got Lawrie Sanchez and Brian Kerr mixed up, getting the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland manager confused. It always comes back to Lawrie Sanchez!

We started getting emails through complaining. It was an innocent mistake but because of the nature of the politics in Ireland it caused problems. You slap yourself on the wrist. Fortunately I haven't had anyone walk out on an interview with me. You learn from things like that.

Watching from inside: Troy Deeney kept up to date with Watford's progress while in prison by watching the Football League Show

I once interviewed Chris Lewis, the former England cricketer. When he was first involved with the whole match-fixing scandal. I was covering a run-of-the-mill game at Old Trafford, Leicestershire v Lancashire and Chris was supposed to be part of the Leicestershire squad but he got excluded from the squad to be questioned by MCC hierarchy. Then he came back to be 12th man or one of the guys watching form the sidelines.

During the lunch break I got him in and interviewed him about how it all went. It was all in the papers the previous day but he took the story even further with me saying the England and Wales Cricket Board knew about it for the previous year.

Getting a scoop: Manish spoke to former England cricketer Chris Lewis and got an exclusive about his match-fixing allegations

I was thinking 'this is a huge story.' As I was conducting the interview, Pat Murphy who was there for Radio 5 Live is behind me listening to the whole thing. Chris has gone off talking about how his name is dirt in the game, no-one shakes his hand any more, even his own team-mates.

Pat says to me: 'I hope you're going to send that to 5 Live because that was explosive.' So I said 'let's do it' and sent it. It was their top line all day. Little things like that help you learn.

Doing his research: Manish watches midweek games so he can keep up with the likes of Tranmere

The Football League Show is not just about that Saturday night. The show entails doing a lot of research on Thursdays and Fridays, ringing around managers and players, finding out the situation at their clubs, how things are going.

I go to a lot of midweek games. You can't do this job without watching any games. Everyone is up to speed with Premier League issues but when you want to talk about League One and Two you've really got to get down to clubs and find out what's going on.

Face of the Football League: Manish Bhasin has been presenting the highlights show since 2009

Representing the 72: Manish poses with the Football League trophy

Hit with the managers: Gianfranco Zola is interviewed by Manish

You could search on Google for 'Arsenal' and find out everything that's going on and be an expert within half-an-hour. You can't do that with the lower leagues – at your Burys, Tranmeres and Rotherhams.

There's a lot of research involved. It gets easier after four years on the show but the first season was very challenging. You have to spread your wings and get out there.

The show is more than just a Saturday. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for me is all about doing commercial activities, mc-ing conferences, public speaking, presenting awards ceremonies. It works hand-in-glove with what I do as a public face.

I'm always up for the next challenge. You've got to have ambitions. I never sit and think about what's ahead.

I'm almost approaching the same amount of time as I did on Football Focus, I'm one season away and that's me done on the Football League Show.

I love the programme, it's developed a cult status on after Match of the Day and makes for a big Saturday night of football. In many ways it's been a huge success. I'm open to different things but I love absolutely love working in sport.